Oscar Barrera RodríguezSenior Research Fellow · UCD
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Oscar Barrera Rodríguez

Research

My research combines survey and field experiments with electoral, administrative and firm-level financial data. Papers are grouped by theme below; each has its own page with the abstract, links and citation.

Theme

Job market paper

Job market paperWorking paper

Latest version:

Biased Information, Biased Preferences: How Fragmented Media Environments Undermine Support for Redistribution

with Lora Pavlova and Li Yang

A pre-registered experiment with 4,524 German adults separates the effect of reading a narrative about the 2022–23 inflation surge from the choice of what to read. Selection is confirmatory, and a narrative moves preferences for redistribution more when it is chosen than when it is imposed. Only the right-leaning article moves party preference, raising support for a far-right platform by 3.8 points; backfire is confined to the most right-leaning fifth of respondents.

Publications

Published

Journal of Development Economics

183, 103833 · 2026

Texting Parents about Early Child Development: Behavioral Changes and Unintended Social Effects

with Karen Macours, Patrick Premand, and Renos Vakis

A field experiment in rural Nicaragua tests whether text messages about parenting practices improve early childhood development. Self-reported parenting practices changed, but children's cognitive development did not improve; when local opinion leaders were also exposed to the messages, parental investments declined and children's outcomes deteriorated.

Published

European Journal of Political Economy

88, 102684 · 2025

Capital vs. labour: The effect of income sources on attitudes toward the top 1 percent

with Emmanuel Chávez

In an online survey experiment with 2,000 French respondents, quantitative information about the income sources of the top 1% consistently shifts attitudes toward the rich to the unfavourable spectrum. Respondents who vote for left-wing candidates and hold egalitarian notions of justice respond most.

Published

Migration Studies

13(2), mnae010 · 2025

Second-generation immigrants and native attitudes toward immigrants in Europe

with Isabelle Bensidoun and Anthony Edo

Using the 2017 Special Eurobarometer on immigrant integration, the article shows that natives in countries with larger immigrant shares are more likely to see immigrants as a burden on the welfare system and as worsening crime, while second-generation immigrants have positive effects on pro-immigrant attitudes toward security and fiscal concerns.

Book chapter

Political Cleavages and Social Inequalities: A Study of Fifty Democracies, 1948–2020

ed. Amory Gethin, Clara Martínez-Toledano and Thomas Piketty, Harvard University Press, 2021

Social Inequalities, Identity, and the Structure of Political Cleavages in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, 1952–2019

with Ana Leiva, Clara Martínez-Toledano, and Álvaro Zúñiga-Cordero

Combining electoral surveys since the 1950s, the chapter shows how personalist leadership and historical cleavages blur class-based voting in six Latin American democracies, and contrasts volatile party systems with more institutionalized ones.

Published

Journal of Public Economics

182, 104123 · 2020

Open access

Facts, alternative facts, and fact checking in times of post-truth politics

with Sergei Guriev, Emeric Henry, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya

In a randomized online experiment with 2,480 French voters during the 2017 presidential campaign, "alternative facts" by Marine Le Pen proved highly persuasive. Fact-checking improved voters' factual knowledge but did not affect their policy conclusions or support for the candidate.

Working papers

Work in progress

Collaborators

Co-authors on the papers above, most frequent first.

  • Aidan Regan×2
  • Isabelle Bensidoun
  • Emmanuel Chávez
  • Anthony Edo
  • Alba Valquez García
  • Sergei Guriev
  • Emeric Henry
  • Ana Leiva
  • Karen Macours
  • Clara Martínez-Toledano
  • Lora Pavlova
  • Patrick Premand
  • Rafael Quintero Godínez
  • Renos Vakis
  • Li Yang
  • Linus Zechlin
  • Ekaterina Zhuravskaya
  • Álvaro Zúñiga-Cordero